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The Cuban Question 

American Diplomacy. 



/ BY 

Daniel J. Ryan, 

COLUMBUS, O. 



Spahr & Glenn, 
1897. 



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The Cuban Question in American 
Diplomacy* 



X^ Y the treaty of 1819, Spain ceded to the United 
^V States the territory of Florida, and from that 
\^y date the island of Cuba became a subject of 
interest and concern to this government. Its proximity 
to the United States, its natural richness, its desirable 
location, and the fact that it was the last of the vast 
possessions originally held by Spain on the Western 
Hemisphere, made it a subject of diplomatic anxiety on 
the part of the United States. From Monroe to 
McKinley it has at different times occupied considera- 
ble space in the portfolio of the Department of State. 
Upon the commencement of the war between 
France and Spain in 1823, the destiny of Cuba first 
became a serious question of American diplomacy. 
John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, in an 
elaborate and able letter of instruction, dated April 28, 
1823, to our Minister to Spain, Hugh Nelson, wrote of 
the relations of Cuba to the United States. He said : 
" "Whatever may be the issue of this war as between 
those two European powers, it may be taken for granted 
that the domain of Spain upon the American continents, 
north or south, is irrevocably gone. But the islands of 
Cuba and Porto Rico still remain nominally, and so far 
really, dependent upon her, that she yet possesses the 
power of transferring her own dominion over them, 
together with the possession of them, to others. These 
islands, from their local position, are natural appendages 
to the North American Continent, and one of them 
(Cuba) almost in sight of our shores, from a multitude 



2 £#e CuBcm duesfion in 

of considerations has become an object of transcendent 
importance to the commercial and political interests of 
our Union. . Its commanding position with reference to 
the Gulf of Mexico and the West India seas; the char- 
acter of its population ; its situation midway between 
our southern coast and the island of San Domingo ; its 
safe and capacious harbor of the Havana, fronting a 
long line of our shores destitute of the same advantage ; 
the nature of its productions and of its wants, furnish- 
ing the supplies and needing the returns of a commerce 
immensely profitable and mutually beneficial, give it an 
importance in the sum of our national interests with 
which that of no other foreign territory can be com- 
pared, and little inferior to that which binds the differ- 
ent members of this Union together. Such, indeed, are, 
between the interests of that island and of this country, 
the geographical, commercial, moral and political rela- 
tions formed by nature, gathering in the process of 
time, and even now verging to maturity, that, in look- 
ing forward to the probable course of events for the 
short period of half a century, it is scarcely possible to 
resist the conviction that the annexation of Cuba to our 
Federal Republic will be indispensable to the continu- 
ance and integrity of the Union itself." 

At this time President Monroe was deeply dis- 
turbed by the semi-official information received from 
France that Great Britain had been negotiating with 
Spain for the past two years to obtain possession of 
Cuba. So anxious was England to own it, that Gib- 
raltar was said to have been offered as a consideration 
for the cession. That this matter was contemplated 
with much disfavor by our own government may be 
inferred from the language of Mr. Adams, in the letter 
of instruction referred to. He declared that the trans- 
fer of Cuba to Great Britain would be " an event unpro- 



(American ©ipfcrntaqj. 3 

pitious to the interests of this Union." As to the 
position of the administration in such an emergency, 
the distinguished Secretary of State voiced its policy 
when he said that it was its duty and right to prevent 
this by diplomatic and peaceful means if possible, but 
by force if necessary. Thomas Jefferson shared the 
views of Mr. Adams on this subject. From his retreat 
at Monticello the venerable framer of the Declaration of 
Independence wrote President Monroe (June 11, 1823), 
that the possession of Cuba by Great Britain " would 
indeed be a calamity to us." Mr. Jefferson believed 
that Cuba should belong to the United States ; his 
opinion was that " her addition to our confederacy is 
exactly what is wanted to round out our power as a 
nation to the point of its uttermost interest." 

When John Quincy Adams became President, he 
maintained throughout his administration the ideal 
American policy of his predecessor and former chief, 
James Monroe. Through his Secretary of State, Henry 
Clay, he announced to Rufus King, the American Min- 
ister to Spain, that the determined policy of the United 
States would not admit of the occupation of Cuba by 
any European power other than Spain. Similar 
instructions were sent under the date of October 17, 
1825, to James Brown, our Minister to France. "While 
the United States was publicly announcing its position 
on Cuba, the British Ministry was conniving with 
Spanish Refugees in London with a view to revolution- 
izing and possessing the island. In a confidential com- 
munication to the Spanish Secretary of State, Alexander 
H. Everett, the American Minister, in December, 1827, 
bluntly reproached the Spanish government with a 
knowledge of the fact and notified Spain that the United 
States would not permit such an arrangement or transfer 
to be consummated. The underground conspiracy and 



4 £0e <£u8em Qut&iion in 

negotiations of the British government had Cuba as its 
subject for fully a third of a century, commencing with 
President Monroe's administration, and it required the 
most pronounced declarations and the utmost diplo- 
matic vigilance on the part of the United States to 
thwart these English designs. England's insatiable 
appetite for territory, fully in keeping with her unpar- 
alleled record as a land thief, kept our Department of 
State busy. She was constantly using the Cuban 
question, for such it had now become in international 
politics, as a pretext for obtruding her intermeddling 
and dictatorial suggestions. It was at this time that 
England wanted to be one of a triple protectorate over 
Cuba. A proposition embodying this policy was made 
to France and the United States. It was rejected by 
both these nations. 

Twenty-seven years later, in 1852, a similar policy 
was urged by France and Great Britain when they 
framed the Tripartite Treaty and urged the United 
States to sign it. By this treaty the three nations were 
pledged never to attempt to annex Cuba to their 
respective dominions. Edward Everett, the Secretary 
of State, in a masterly state paper, refused for our 
government to consider any such proposition. Upon 
this subject he said : " To enter into a compact with 
European powers to the effect that the United States, 
as well as other contracting powers, would decline all 
intentions, now or hereafter, to obtain possession of 
Cuba, would be inconsistent with the principles, the 
policy and the traditions of the United States." 

It will thus be seen that from 1823 to 1852 the 
Cuban question was one of the foremost issues involved 
in American diplomacy. Once during that period, the 
United States, with a view to ridding herself of the 
dangerous possibility of its acquisition by foreign 



(^mertcan»®iyfomcicg. 5 

powers, other than Spain, made a direct offer to Spain 
through President Polk, in 1848, to purchase the island 
for $100,000,000. This proposition was made through 
the American Minister at Madrid, but was promptly 
rejected by Spain as a national indignity, both by the 
Spanish Crown and the Cortes. The Cuban question 
again came to the surface in the administration of Presi- 
dent Pierce. In the summer of 1854 three American 
Ministers, James Buchanan, John Y. Mason and Pierre 
Soule, accredited severally to Great Britain, to France 
and to Spain, met under the direction of President 
Pierce at Ostend, Belgium, and considered the destiny 
of Cuba in relation to the United States. This confer- 
ence forwarded to the Department of State a long joint 
dispatch which is known in history as the " Ostend 
Manifesto." They substantially recommended that if 
Spain would not sell Cuba the United States would be 
justified from national policy and self preservation in 
seizing it. Nothing ever came out of this conference 
or its manifesto. President Buchanan was strongly in 
favor of acquiring Cuba by purchase, and urged it in 
his second (1858) third (1859) and fourth (1860) mes- 
sages to Congress. In his second message he argued 
thus : " The island of Cuba from its geographical 
position commands the mouth of the Mississippi and 
the immense and annually increasing trade, foreign and 
otherwise, from the valley of that noble river, now em- 
bracing half the sovereign states of the Union. With 
that island under the dominion of a distant foreign 
power, this trade of vital importance to these states, is 
exposed to the danger of being destroyed in time of 
war, and it has hitherto been subjected to perpetual 
injury and annoyance in time of peace. Our relations 
with Spain which ought to be of the most friendly 
character, must always be placed in jeopardy, whilst 



6 . #0e £u8cm (^ueefion in 

the existing colonial government over this island shall 
remain in its present condition." 

Commencing in 1868, war for independence was 
waged by the Cubans for ten years. During this time 
state papers pertaining to intervention and belligerency 
were numerous. In order to put a stop to the bloodshed 
in Cuba the United States in the interest of humanity 
proposed their good offices to bring the existing contest 
to a termination. Spain refused to accede to any 
reasonable request in the matter. President Graut in 
his first annual (1869) message reviewed the Cuban sit- 
uation, but offered no recommendations, nor did he say 
anything concerning it that was not commonplace. 
The next year the President in a special message of 
June 13th, called the attention of Congress to the 
question of recognizing the belligerency of the Cubans, 
but throughout the message argued that the time was 
not ripe for such action. In a diplomatic way this 
country again in 1870 tendered its good offices to Spain, 
and Mr. Fish, the Secretary of State, proposed terms 
for the cession of Cuba to the Cubans. Both tenders 
were rejected, and Spain continued her campaign of 
blood and devastation against a people struggling for 
independence. In vain did Germany, Russia, Italy and 
the United States urge the inauguration of reforms and 
the restoration of peace in Cuba. With the savagery 
of a maddened beast Spain has carried on her butcheries 
in a greater or lesser degree ever since. !No one can 
review with candor the relative positions, historically 
and politically, of our country and Cuba, without 
believing what Hamilton Fish as Secretary of State 
wrote to Caleb Cushing, Minister to Spain, in 1874 : 
" Cuba, like the former continental colonies of Spain in 
America, ought to belong to the great family of Ameri- 
can republics, with political forms and public policy of 



(American ©tpfomacg. 7 

their own, and attached to Europe by no ties save those 
of international amity and intellectual, commercial and 
social intercourse. The desire of independence on the 
part of the Cubans is a natural and legitimate aspira- 
tion of theirs because they are Americans, and while 
such independence is the manifest exigency of the 
political interests of the Cubans themselves, it is equally 
so that of the rest of America, including the United 
States." 

From the present conditions it looks as if the day 
of the realization of the traditional aspirations of 
the American people was at hand. It is within the 
constitutional power of the President to do the act that 
will bring ultimate independence to Cuba. His deep 
patriotism and love of freedom should make this act one 
of pleasure. History will make it immortal. What 
that great tribune of liberty, Owen Lovejoy, once said 
in a debate in Congress, can properly be repeated now : 
" To be president, to be king, to be victor, has happened 
to many ; to be embalmed in the hearts of mankind 
throughout all generations as liberator and emancipator 
has been vouchsafed to few." 



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